Life events and their impact on bladder control in children

To investigate the relationship between incidence and nature of life events within families and age of bladder control acquisition in healthy children.

Thirty-five parents of 36, 6-year-old children were interviewed using the Coddington life events questionnaire.

The children had experienced a total of 185 life events (mean 5, median 4.5, range 1-12) before the time of dryness. The most common were related to childcare/occupation of parent (51%), illness/injury/death (24%), family composition (16%) and living conditions (9%). There was a strong correlation between the number of life events and the age of dryness; the more life events and the older the child was when experiencing them, the later the child became dry. The only single event that was significantly associated with a later age of dryness was the birth of a sister or brother. In general, children had reacted positively (39%) or neutrally, but to 30% of events there was a negative reaction. There was a correlation between the reaction of the child and adaptation to the life event, and if the child had difficulty adapting to an event, that child became day dry at a later age.

Although life events are a natural part of daily life, this study supports the conclusion that a large number of events and events to which the child has difficulty adapting can be of importance for the age of acquisition of bladder control.